Ivan Anokhin, Olga Lebedeva, Andrey Dermeiko, authors of the "Creative BIM" course at MARSH
In early February, a three-day course “BIM in a design office. Where to begin?". This is the beginning of a joint experiment between the Moscow School of Architecture and the APEX company to rethink the role of technology in the design and teaching process. Teaching both architects and those who manage the design process. The second, much longer stage will be the three-month intensive "Creative BIM", during which the authors of the course: Olga Lebedeva, Ivan Anokhin and Andrey Dermeiko want to reproduce a full-fledged team design process from a sketch to a working virtual model, which will make it possible to implement an object - a summer pavilion for Artplay - actually. The construction partners are Gradas, Guardian, Schüco and Kaptechnostroy. We understand the specifics of the declared experiment.
Archi.ru:
I would like to start our conversation with an understanding of the subject of your teaching. What is Creative Building Information Modeling? It always seemed to me that BIM is a harsh technology and is not particularly suitable for creativity, rather it is needed for its registration in construction documentation
Andrey Dermeiko:
“We want to show how the creative concept development process and the technical documentation preparation process can be linked to each other. The focus of the course is the projected object, respectively, the possibilities of the programs will be studied with obligatory practical application to those ideas that will be generated by the participants. In turn, research and selection of suitable software will be able to suggest new directions for the development of the concept.
Due to the marketing policy of software vendors and manufacturers, as well as the fragmentation of information on the network, people get the impression that BIM is "some kind of software." In reality, BIM is a technology, and the list of programs that allow you to work with this technology is quite wide. And we want to consider, as part of the course, different programs so that our listeners, having developed an idea in a model, could transfer materials directly to the construction site: to the contractor, to the manufacturer.
Ivan Anokhin:
- For us, the BIM environment is a single space for creativity, a virtual world in which all participants in the process coexist mutually. Our course does not imply the study of programs as a set of tools, it is intended to simulate the activities of the project team: from the concept stage to cutting the ribbon on the embodied object. That is why we first conducted a short intensive course on BIM implementation in a design office. At the same time, it is true that in terms of the "rigor" of this technology, the requirements for the hygiene of the environment are high, this is not an "autocad" or a sheet of paper on which a plan is drawn and then copied to check another layout. We will try to show the principles of work in such conditions on the basis of the experience accumulated by APEX not only in design, but also in project management, remote interaction with colleagues, including foreign ones.
As I understand it, this is the approach that makes your company so effective in the market. Why would you teach others what allows you to win in competition for a customer?
Olga Lebedeva:
- APEX is a diversified company, the direction of teaching is another stage in the development of the team, the expansion of our skills. Through the course, employees are involved in educational work: giving lectures, developing the course program, teaching, participating in intermediate screenings as members of the jury …
Andrey Dermeiko:
- In addition, it is a way of influencing the information field, the ability to move the industry and the economy, no matter how pathetic it sounds.
Ivan Anokhin:
- For us, as an actively developing company, it is interesting to expand our horizons in modern technologies, and share our best practices with colleagues in the shop. There has never been such an educational product on the market.
Olga Lebedeva:
- This course, among other things, is also an opportunity to expand our human resource, having previously provided training and a basis for teamwork. Knowledge of software can always be improved, but understanding the process from start to finish and the ability to work with a team and production are really valuable knowledge of employees.
What is your personal motivation in developing and delivering this course?
Ivan Anokhin:
- I have been involved in art projects for many years and participated in educational seminars. I am interested in applying this experience in a BIM format that allows you to create a high-tech object.
Andrey Dermeiko:
- Every time you teach someone, you learn by yourself and put things in order in your head. This is an additional reason to systematize your knowledge. In addition, I have not taught outside APEX for a long time - it is necessary to study from the inside what is happening on the market as a whole, including to correct the company's development strategy.
Olga, you don't seem to have any teaching experience yet?
Olga Lebedeva:
- Not within the university yet, but I wanted to start for a long time. Within the office, this is an ongoing process of own training and transfer of knowledge to the team. A lot of experience has been accumulated, for 14 years I have worked in several large Moscow bureaus, studied at Columbia University, saw and experienced a variety of methods and work and learning. I would like to share.
I am fascinated by the idea to show in such a short time the entire process of work from idea to implementation - after all, it usually takes more than a year, and at large facilities, several years. I would like to show that each stage of work - concept, project, release of documentation, production, construction - everything is interesting and can bring joy from the process.
The temptation to use a large number of programs, especially in the end as a customer, is also not the last incentive. And, of course, the possibility of implementing an object with serious partners who are ready to provide the best materials and high-quality production - one can only dream of this. If I had not been a co-author of the course, I would have gone to study with us myself.
Andrey spoke about a wide list of programs included in the BIM environment. How many and what percentage do you use during the course?
Andrey Dermeiko:
- There is an international non-profit organization Building Smart, which develops and supports IFC, a universal neutral exchange format that ensures software compatibility in the BIM environment. Their website lists all programs that are certified to work with this format. Now the list contains more than fifty items, but it is constantly growing. Plus there is a certain typology: some programs are created for designing, that is, creating information, others for analyzing it, others for managing and transforming …
Ivan Anokhin:
- It is worth noting that in addition to specialized programs, there are those that can simply connect to it, for example, the familiar Excel. It fits well and helps with parameterization, information retrieval, description.
Andrey Dermeiko:
- And it allows the customer to present the data in the form in which he is used to reading them. And this is very important. We are talking not only about programs, but also about the work of the team, ways of exchanging information, receiving it, generating and managing it. A huge range of scenarios.
We expect to cover seven to eight programs in the course.
As a journalist, I am impressed by the mention of the concept of information. But for an unaccustomed ear, doesn't this sound too abstract in relation to architecture, as a material object consisting of windows, doors, bricks …
Andrey Dermeiko:
- But they don't exist without parameters. Actually, in a classical man-made drawing, we see a set of lines, and their reading depends only on the interpretation of some set of lines as a wall, and another as an opening. What makes them meaningful? Reading ability: someone wrote down information on a sheet, and another deciphered it.
Ivan Anokhin:
- An information model of a building differs from a drawing in that we can operate not only with three dimensions, but also with such parameters as time, financial model … With proper tuning of the model, it is possible to shoot rather large amounts of information from specifications or layouts of atypical elements - to estimates and time charts.
Judging by your descriptions, BIM as a technology has already taken place, and it is no longer worth expecting something from it that will completely revolutionize the architectural life. Or is the innovative potential of this environment not exhausted?
Andrey Dermeiko:
- Indeed, lately there is no talk of any fundamentally new generation of software, competition is more based on working with details. But if we are talking about the impact of BIM on architecture, then the transformation of the construction stage is just beginning: working with 3D printers, entering the site of robots. BIM model as a database has much more about Greater potential for subsequent automation of construction than a blueprint. Certainly not tomorrow, but a lot of interesting things will happen here.
And if BIM disappears, will your architecture become different?
Olga Lebedeva:
- My personally is unlikely. I did complex projects while I was studying, without a computer manually until the fifth year. Undoubtedly, without BIM, all mathematical calculations will be more difficult to perform, but I will draw more, enjoy the process of drawing with my hands, and the number of drawings will be minimized as much as possible. And of course there will be more layouts.
But the architecture of the design office, large complexes, large-scale, complex reconstruction, engineering structures - strongly depend on the speed of processing and issuance of documentation, on the volume, on the high accuracy of drawings of all related disciplines and a single database of all participants in the process. And here it is already impossible to imagine such a process today without a BIM environment. There will simply not be such an architecture, because the process will be stretched out over time so that it will not be profitable.
Ivan Anokhin:
- In general, my architecture will remain the same. The architectural image, first of all, is a product of ourselves, it is born in our imagination. At the moment, the process of working with paper refers only to the very first stages of image formation.
The computer provides a large enough toolkit to test ideas for viability.
The question is different: computer technologies radically change the design time frame, and not always for the better. On the one hand, BIM speeds up work, this is a market demand. On the other hand, acceleration does not always become synonymous with thoughtfulness and elaboration. Balance is needed. Actually finding it - between the amount of time spent on forming an image, filtering ideas, thinking through all the nodes, details and technology of the process itself - to the smallest detail - would be the answer to your previous question about the development prospects. New Shukhovs and Shekhtels should appear.
If BIM disappears, I will gladly take a pencil, but I will miss the freedom of abstract form creation and the ease of solving routine tasks.
